Times Quick Cryptic No 1483 by Tracy

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Well I must have been on Tracy’s wavelength today, because I completed this in 7m 4s, which is probably a PB when all parsing is included.  I expect to see some very fast times quoted as a result.  That isn’t to say that this QC is easy!  There is some sticky parsing (2 and 7d), and I think an error in 22a that may cause some hold-ups.  I’d be delighted to be proven wrong on 22a, but I can’t think of any other way to explain it.  Please let me know your thoughts and times.

Across

1  One expecting Bottom here in play (6-2-2)
MOTHER-TO-BE – Anagram (in play) of [BOTTOM HERE]
8  Greatly delight church member (5)
CHARM – CH (church) and ARM (member)
9 Tried to, working in a US city (7)
DETROIT – Anagram (working) of [TRIED TO]
10  Later step developed a constituent of gunpowder (9)
SALTPETRE – Anagram (developed) of [LATER STEP].  I think we have had this or a similar clue a couple of times recently.
12 Appearance of couple heading off (3)
AIR – The couple with the heading (first letter) removed is a {p}AIR.
13 Cambridge blue perhaps wore pants on river (5)
ROWER – Anagram (pants) of WORE followed by R{iver}.  Oxford and Cambridge students are awarded their respective ‘blues’ (dark or light respectively) by playing sport for their colleges at the highest level in a specific sport.  Rowing is one of those sports that can lead to the award of full blues.  For more information, google ‘blue university sport’.
15 Start working with group (5)
ONSET – ON (working) and SET (group).
17  Mature and wise?  Not initially (3)
AGE – {s}AGE means wise, but the first letter is dropped (not initially).
18  Reveal love in declaration of intent (9)
MANIFESTO – To MANIFEST something is to reveal it, and this is then followed by O (love) to give the name of the published intentions of all our aspiring political parties at the moment.
20  Stretch of Devon river full of vessels (7)
EXPANSE – The Devon river is the EXE which is full of PANS (vessels).
21  Long tiring walk for vagrant (5)
TRAMP – Double definition
22  Willing retainer?  Mellows, for example (10)
GAMEKEEPER – GAME (willing) and KEEPER (retainer).  Unless I am missing something, I think this is an error in the early edition of the crossword that I solved, which may have been corrected in later versions (I’ll check in the morning).  My interpretation is that this should be referring to Oliver Mellors rather than Mellows.  Oliver Mellors was the GAMEKEEPER in D.H. Lawrence’s novel entitled “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.  I am unaware of a literary (or otherwise) gamekeeper with the name of Mellows.

Down

1  Agricultural machine marked spruce badly (12)
MUCKSPREADER – Anagram (badly) of [MARKED SPRUCE]
2  Follow the man leaving the bar (5)
TRAIL – T{he} (the man, i.e. HE leaving THE) and RAIL (bar).  A little convoluted this, I thought, for a QC.
3  Wood used by barrel maker (3)
ELM – Hidden inside {barr}EL M{aker}.
4  Objective of potential lover, until now? (2,4)
TO DATE – A potential lover might desire TO DATE, which also means up until now, so a double definition.
5  Gambler leaving richer (6,3)
BETTER OFF – BETTER (gambler) and OFF (leaving).
6  Gold discovered in extensive marsh (6)
MORASS – OR (gold) inside (discovered in) MASS (extensive).
7  Soldier’s charge account set up around start of October (5,7)
STORM TROOPER – STORM (charge) and REPORT reversed (set up) outside O{ctober} (start).
11  I pray, forlornly, about sultanate’s burning desire? (9)
PYROMANIA – Anagram (forlornly) of [I PRAY] outside OMAN (Sultanate).
14  Gives birth: wife lends a hand (6)
WHELPS – W{ife} and HELPS (lends a hand).
16  Queen cross over East wing (6)
ANNEXE – ANNE (our Queen in this clue) and X (cross) and finally (over) E{ast}.
19  Note coming from small plucked instrument (5)
SHARP – S{mall} and HARP (plucked instrument).  A SHARP is a note raised a semitone in music.
21  Draw level, right away (3)
TIE – TIE{r} – remove the R (right away) from TIER (level).

37 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1483 by Tracy”

  1. I KNEW there was something about ‘Mellows’, but it didn’t register; the Rotter is surely right, though. I biffed from the E_P, but still didn’t notice the spelling problem. Also biffed MANIFESTO & STORM TROOPER. 2d definitely tricky; maybe as the Rotter says, too tricky for a Quickie. 4:13.
  2. A very nice puzzle which I was delighted to solve in 8 minutes, comfortably within my target 10 which is becoming a less common experience at the moment.

    Spotted the error in 22ac right away having guessed the answer from checkers.

  3. I think this is my worst ever result! Just under 18 minutes which is OK but 4 errors. Wrote in SALTPETER so that changed BETTER OFF and then managed to right in TRILL not TRAIL – perhaps I pressed CAPS LOCK instead of the A – and that changed CHARM to CHIRM. Annexe was my COD, completely misdirected and at a loss for where to start for a while – solved with an alphabet trawl and smile and a groan. I wasn’t slowed down by Mellows as I hadn’t heard of him or Mellors, just realised some knowledge was lacking and waited for enough checkers to come in. Might have to go back to solving on paper again if I’m going to be this careless – but the I might still be pondering SALTPETRE.
  4. 17 minutes and some quite tough clues as usual from tracy.

    Last few were trail, saltpetre, and expanse.

    Wouldn’t have understood the parsing for gamekeeper whether it was mellows or mellors. Bad clue.

    COD pyromania or better off.

    Edited at 2019-11-14 06:23 am (UTC)

  5. Like Vinyl I raced through the top half and then bottommed- out.

    FOI & WOD 1dn MUCKSPREADER

    LOI 11 dn PYROMANIA

    COD 22ac but with MELLORS (who was based on a real person. Lady Chatterly was based on Cynthia Charteris, later Asquith)

    I note at 7dn the SS are still with us.

  6. I whizzed through this neglecting to stop to parse TRAIL and not spotting the mistake at 22A. LOI ANNEXE. I liked MOTHER TO BE and EXPANSE most. 3:46.
  7. A quick solve today with my only hold ups being with ANNEXE and the parsing of 7d which added a minute or so to my time of 8.05. My ignorance of DH Lawrence clearly saved me any confusion with 22a, as I just assumed that the name was correct. Enjoyed 5d.
    Thanks for the blog
  8. I’m completely out of step with everyone else on this one because I took a full four Kevins (count them – four) for a Very Bad Day. I wasted huge amounts of time trying to parse TRAIL (which I still don’t think works – there’s a surplus “the”. It should be “the man leaving bar”, not “the man leaving the bar”) and trying to think of an alternative to GAMEKEEPER (safekeeper? gatekeeper?) because of “Mellows” not being “Mellors”. Infuriating. My assumption is always that I’m missing something rather than that the puzzle is wrong. Otherwise pretty plain sailing, though I needed a trawl to find “storm”.

    FOI MOTHER TO BE, LOI (by miles) GAMEKEEPER, no COD.

    Thanks Hurley and Rotter.

    Templar

    1. It is ‘the man’ I.e. HE leaving the second T{he}, so no redundant THE. It works for me.
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  10. 11.50, easily a PB, but with STORMTROOPER and TRAIL un-parsed.
    I found the top half easiest and I didn’t have a problem with ‘Mellows’ as I’m useless with names and it looked right to me (it comes in useful sometimes). My LOI was ANNEXE, and I liked MORASS and PYROMANIA.
    Thanks to Tracy, and to therotter for the explanations

    Brian

  11. 29:09 but a bit of a biff-fest as could never have parsed STORM TROOPER, TRAIL and MANIFESTO. Annoyed that I was so slow to see a few of the anagrams, especially misled by Bottom and play in 1A.
    Many thanks for the explanations, therotter.
    COD 5D.
  12. After a sluggish start, I got into my stride and finished on TO DATE. I had a vague suspicion there was something wrong about MELLOWS, but shrugged and moved on. 7:50. Thanks Tracy and Rotter.
  13. Starting with 1d probably saved me from a lengthy trawl through vaguely remembered Shakespeare characters for 1ac, and those two then opened up the grid. Even so, I still took nearly 30mins as I needed an alphabet trawl for Storm (kept on thinking of State, though I was fairly sure 12ac Air was correct), and spent several minutes parsing 2d. To be honest, I thought it was quite a poor clue. I had no idea what Mellows/Mellor had to do with 22ac, so Gamekeeper went in with a shrug. Invariant
  14. 08:57 for me today with LOI STORMTROOPER unparsed.
    Nothing too difficult I thought and I was not held up by the gamekeeper error. I knew his name was something like that.
    FOI was CHARM and COD to ROWER.
    David
  15. There seems to be a lot of controversy about what I found a pretty straightforward solve. But then I misread Mellows as Melllors anyway. Took a while to spot some of the anagrams after I had biffed the answers. Particularly enjoyed 1ac. Nice piece of misdirection.
    PlayUpPompey
  16. Like ‘PUP’ immediately above, I was a but surprised by some of the controversy since I found this relatively straightforward for a Tracy puzzle. Some good anagrams and I liked ROWER, PYROMANIA, STORMTROOPER, TRAIL, WHELPS and MANIFESTO (after wasting time with ‘proposal’). Well under 3K for me. Thanks to both. John M.

    Edited at 2019-11-14 11:41 am (UTC)

  17. …. couldn’t have mispwonounced the ‘r’ in Mellors as a ‘w’. Which was why GAMEKEEPER was LOI.

    FOI and COD MOTHER-TO-BE. Simply a routine puzzle.

  18. Slowest for ages today. No particular excuse, looking back at it now. Never mind, tomorrow’s another day (that would make for a good closing line in a film …)
    My thanks to Tracy for beating me up and to Rotter for unravelling my ravels.
    8’05”
  19. 14.16 today. Very pleased with that.

    LOI was MORASS – had never heard the word and took me a couple of minutes to get it.

    I’d never heard of Mellows or Mellors so simply got it from the wordplay. As soon as I thought willing could be game, I went for it – and assumed Mellows was some sort of literary ref.

    Ignorance is bliss.

    RC

  20. A usual DNF for me but an enjoyable diversion on delayed LNER to Newcastle. By the way, a cancelled train on outbound route results in Substantial delay repay comp so every cloud..

    Not really on wavelength but no complaints – all my doing and a very fair QC. For the record, and for no particular reason, Morass, Pyromania, Whelps, and Gamekeeper were my misses.
    Graham

  21. A very enjoyable solve today which started quickly with FOI 1a MOTHER-TO-BE. I biffed STORM TROOPER and parsed after submitting, guessed GAMEKEEPER from the wordplay as the reference to Mellows/Mellors was lost on me and finished sub 8 minutes with LOI MUCKSPREADER. I would have solved 1d sooner had I not accidentally touch typed in V instead of C for 8a CHARM. Thanks Rotter for the blog and clarification on 22a. COD to 2d TRAIL.
  22. Count me in as another who didn’t find this TOO difficult! Just under 3K, so a Pretty Good Day. I like Tracy’s crosswords – they’re always quite challenging but the cluing is usually quite tight and the surfaces are usually great! For me, today is no exception. So many great clues that I found it hard to choose a COD – to date, better off and pyromania all had smiles next to them (my code while doing the crossword). However, I do agree that 2d was troublesome. I got trail but semi-biffed it, so thanks, Rotter, for the parsing. I realised straightaway that Mellows was a mistake, so put in gamekeeper without any doubt.

    For those of you who don’t do the 15×15 or read the blog, there has been a scoring system called the SNITCH going for some time (you can find out more via the link which is either at the top or the bottom of the page when you log in). Just recently, someone (apologies I can’t remember who) suggested a WITCH, which is a wavelength scoring system. In my own personal WITCH, I would give this crossword a 8/10 (the actual data collection for the SNITCH is far more complex than a self-marked score!)

    FOI Mother-to-be
    LOI Expanse
    COD Mother-to-be
    Time 12 minutes (more or less)
    Weather Awful!

  23. 8 minutes here with a frown (I was working on gate keeper) and then shrug (wouldn’t have known the character even if it had been spelt correctly) at loi 22ac. Thanks for the analysis, Rotter.
  24. About 30 mins for me, but would have been shorter if I hadn’t got stuck on 17ac “Age” and 14dn “Whelp”. For some reason, I biffed in “Awn” for mature which I freely admit didn’t make any sense until I properly figured out the wordplay.

    Like many, I didn’t know Mellors, but guessed it was some literary figure so still managed to get “Gamekeeper”.

    Overall, I really enjoyed this, especially fathoming out the parsing on 2dn “Trail” which I found particularly clever along with 7dn “Stormtrooper”. Both were tied for my COD.

    FOI = 13ac “Rower”
    LOI = 17ac “Age”

  25. I finished in under 30 mins including filling up the bird feeders (I never time it exactly) so am very pleased. Noticed the mistake with the gamekeeper and couldn’t parse storm trooper but all in all very satisfied!
      1. We see ours outside the window and felt guilty eating our lunch watching the torrential rain, with goldfinches fighting over 4 holes that should have been 8!
  26. Tricky one. Not a fan of trail, morass escaped me, mass for extensive just didn’t come to mind. I also had safekeeper for 22ac because I didn’t know Mellors. Ah well, lots to learn.
    1. Probably didn’t come to mind because it doesn’t work! Massive I could live with for extensive, but not mass. I was completely thrown by reading 22a and thinking “if it was Mellors it would be obvious”, and then ignoring gamekeeper as a possible answer for ages. Personally thought 2d was ridiculous for a QC, fortunate that the checkers didn’t allow anything else.
      Not one of Tracy’s best I feel.
  27. I don’t work in Kevins but rather a large Sauvignon Blanc which for me is about 20-25 mins. So today’s QC was perfect. Occasionally I finish with half a glass left. I’ll never manage sub 5 due to the supping. Just to clarify- this is a lunchtime not breakfast hobby for me! Johnny
  28. Found this very accessible for a ‘Tracy’ with 16 completed on first pass and then not too long for the remaining 8. East went in first. Took too long to spot the anagram at 9d – having D-T—T made it obvious, and then figured out why. 22a went in very quickly and before I realised the error in the clue. Didn’t manage to parse 2d or 7d so thanks to Rotter’s explanations. FOI 1a. LOI 6d (looking for au rather than or). COD 11d. Didn’t manage to time this, but should have done so. I’d guess a pleasant stroll through at 35-40 minutes. Sadly I don’t measure by lunchtime wine but by evening Costas, but solved at home today as it was too dark and wet to want to drive out in the rush hour to my nearest town…
  29. Don’t usually comment on here but I think that was as fast as I can type on an iPad. In any case a lot faster than yesterday’s effort…
  30. Didn’t find this particularly easy but I did manage to finish without using any aids. So quite a good day. No idea of time as I did it in a couple of sittings. Was pleased that I spotted ones like 20ac.
    Couldn’t parse a few (2d and 7d, for example) so thanks for the explanation.
  31. 3 more typos, I must proof read before submitting. Really surprised at how many did not know Mellors, I thought that was old chestnut stuff.

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